Will Self - Great Apes

Busner registered all this, but resolved to keep an open mind. After all, he mused, it would ill behove a chimp as vilified by the academic hierarchy as I am to believe seesign against another similarly vilified.

Now, within hours of their destination, Busner recalled all of these digitations and wondered what lay in store for them. In his own mind he remained absolutely undecided as to whether Simon’s conviction that the human numbered 9234 was his missing infant was merely the appendix to the former artist’s psychosis, or the very linchpin. Whether encountering humans in the wild would free him — or condemn him. Busner was, he decided, operating on the same principle as Alex Knight and his crew: point the recording device at what was happening and see what it looked like.

What the country around them looked like was highly telegenic. As they gained the border of the game reserve, and had their papers checked by the Kalashnikov-toting bonobo at the checkpoint, a vista of steeply rolling verdancy stretched away from them towards the blue immensities of the great lake beyond. As if Mother Nature herself were pant-hooting their arrival, the heavy rain faltered and then died away altogether. The Landcruiser bucked and slithered between thirty-hand-high banks of grass, which were wreathed with steamy evaporation. There were coconut palms in profusion and candelabra trees aglow with brilliant red blossoms.

Alex Knight kept his camera panning about the place, turning three hundred and sixty degrees in his seat every minute or so. ‘“Aaaa” it’ll be dark soon,’ he delineated for Simon, ‘and I want to be absolutely certain that I have enough establishing shots.’

They gained the final ridge of hills and below them was the lake. The dagaa fisherchimps’ outriggers were coming into shore, their outboards cutting grey-white grooves across the rumpled azure. And there was Camp Rauhschutz, a mean little huddle of corrugated iron shacks, their galvanised roofs glowing orange with the rays of the setting sun, which like some stellar swelling bulged as it was penetrated by the horizon.

Simon saw it all and registered it all, but his thoughts and imaginings were entirely taken up with the human business in hand. How quickly would he be able to find Simon junior? He hadn’t dared fully to form the image that lurked in the recesses of his mind, an image so in keeping with the other furniture of his human delusion that it might have been purpose-built by the same psychic carpenter who had converted his frontal lobes, installing the focal hyperintensities and manipulating the view. It was an image of Simon junior’s bare little visage, his undershot jaw and slightly goofy teeth. It was an image that like a hardy tug drew behind it an entire freight of change. For, when Simon met Simon, the whole ghastly planet of the apes, would — or so he almost dared to hope — waver and dissolve. Busner would put on trousers and get a shave. They’d fly back to an England where the politicians brown-nosed metaphorically — rather than literally.

“HoooH’Graa!” The six chimps in the Landcruiser sent up a great pant-hoot of arrival as the vehicle lurched to a halt in the muddy compound. There to meet them was Ludmilla Rauhschutz, together with her bonobo assistants. Rauhschutz was a striking figure, so obese as to be almost a ball of dark-brown fur. Her muzzle was disturbingly flat and animal for a German chimp, and her close-cropped head fur didn’t help matters. Nor did the hideously patterned shortie mumu that flared around her shoulders like a perverse material garnish on an unappetising dish. The mumu unobscured the non-object of desire that lay between her lanate legs. It was easy to see why Rauhschutz eschewed a swelling-protector — she had no need of one. When in full oestrus her swelling must have been a paltry affair, for now, in a fallow period, her perineal region was barely noticeable.

Even Simon found this off-putting to the point of being unsettling, inparting Bob’s shoulder, ‘“Euch-euch” it’s revolting, she’s got hardly any scrag at all!’ Busner sign-lenced him with a low bark, because Rauhschutz was knuckle-walking over to the Landcruiser, while the useful-looking bonobos were drumming on the metal sides of the nearest hut to clamorous effect.

“HoooGraa!” she called, then gestured grandly, ‘Welcome to my humble camp, Dr Busner. I have watched all day for the burst of light that would mean your radiant, refulgent scrag was drawing near. I have longed for many “gru-nn” years to get my fingers in your eminent fur, and to grope over with you the sorry state of chimpunity.’ As was his way, Busner was not in the least put out by this nauseating display of sycophancy. He leapt from the Landcruiser, as fleet of hand as a sub-adult out hunting and presented low to the fat female, signing as he did, ‘“H’hooo” I am honoured, madam, to make your acquaintance. The entire scientific community is in awe of your ischial pleat — the scientific community that matters, that is — and I too reverence your dangly bits. I would accord it an honour if you would kiss my arse.’

Simon, watching this exchange, wondered whether Rauhschutz would suspect Busner of any irony when he flicked the customary honorifics, but her flat muzzle betrayed no suspicion of anger as she bestowed the required kiss, then requested an arse lick from Busner in turn.

The rest of the English chimps swung out of the Landcruiser and knuckle-walked over, pant-hooting. They were joined by the bonobos, and for some minutes there was a round of presenting, counter-presenting and group grooming. As the hispid huddle began to fission slightly, Busner put the finger on Simon and tweaked him in Rauhschutz’s direction. ‘“H’hoo” Madam Rauhschutz, may I present the main reason for our visit, this is “chup-chupp” Simon Dykes the artist.

Simon presented low, pressing his muzzle into the mud; his scut trembled under the hortatory pat of the anthropologist. He looked up into eye sockets of an uncommon depth, and irises of uncompromising verticality. If he expected to see any trace of humanity in those eyes, engendered by the female’s lunatic creed, then he was cruelly disappointed. For Rauhschutz’s expression was chimpanzee through and through, acquisitive, curious, nakedly intent.

‘“Hooo” Mr Dykes,’ the alpha female signed, her fingers jagged, her styling heavily accented, ‘Dr Busner wrote to me concerning your “hooo” disturbing complaint. Forgive me,’ she crouched down again to run her fingers over Simon’s ischial pleat, and tweaked his scrotum for good measure, ‘but apart from a certain stiffness in your gait, I see nothing that is inchimp about you — let alone human “grnnn”.’

‘Madam Rauhschutz, your swelling is the tropical verdancy that surrounds us, your pleat is as the Rift Valley itself — a fount of speciation. It’s true that I don’t “gru-nnn” appear to be human, and it’s also true that since my “euch-euch” devastating breakdown, with the assistance of Dr Busner here, I have manged to “hooo” come to terms with aspects of my chimpunity, but there’s still one thing that troubles me. The thing that’s brought us—’

‘I know.’ The maverick German anthropologist waved him down; her plump fingers scrabbled his rump as she inparted, ‘Dr Busner told me of your interest in Biggles—’

‘Biggles “huuu”?!’ It was Simon’s turn to chop the air.

‘“Hooo” I suppose you know him by some other ascription, but I’ve denoted this infant human Biggles — you’ll see why when you meet him. But now, I’m neglecting my duties as host, Joshua here will show you to your sleeping quarters.’ She turned to conduct the whole group, ‘We first — and last — mess together in an hour’s time, at dusk. You’ll find that we’ve adapted ourselves pretty much to a human diurnal pattern here, lady and gentle chimps. We rise at dawn, and get to nest an hour after dusk. If it doesn’t suit you, I can cordially sign — cunt off!’